IEEE 802.6 is a standard governed by the ANSI for

Metropolitan Area Networks A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a computer network that interconnects users with computer resources in a geographic region of the size of a metropolitan area. The term MAN is applied to the interconnection of local area networks (LANs) in ...

(MAN). It is an improvement of an older standard (also created by ANSI) which used the Fiber distributed data interface (FDDI) network structure. The FDDI-based standard failed due to its expensive implementation and lack of compatibility with current

LAN Lan or LAN may also refer to: Science and technology * Local asymptotic normality, a fundamental property of regular models in statistics * Longitude of the ascending node, one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in sp ...

standards. The IEEE 802.6 standard uses the Distributed Queue Dual Bus (DQDB) network form. This form supports 150 Mbit/s transfer rates. It consists of two unconnected unidirectional buses. DQDB is rated for a maximum of 160 km before significant signal degradation over fiberoptic cable with an optical wavelength of 1310 nm. This standard has also failed, mostly for the same reasons that the FDDI standard failed. MANs are traditionally designed using

Synchronous Optical Network Synchronous optical networking (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) are standardized protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams synchronously over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting diodes ...

(SONET),

Synchronous Digital Hierarchy Synchronous optical networking (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) are standardized protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams synchronously over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting diode ...

(SDH) or Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). Recent designs use native

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

or MPLS.

References

IEEE 802.06 Networking standards Metropolitan area networks {{compu-network-stub